Where Is My Mind?
by stretch the faunlet
Summary: 1/3 in Trilogy. Tragic experiences can change people. And for one young Irken female, it did just that, if not more. But she didn't just change, she decided to take matters into her own hands. ZATR. ZADF.


_**Where is My Mind?**_

**_Prologue_**

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><p><em>'Your head will collapse, <em>  
><em>But there's nothing in it,<em>  
><em>And you ask yourself;<em>  
><em>Where is my mind?<em>  
><em>Where is my mind?<em>  
><em>Where is my mind?'<em>

_- "Where Is My Mind?", Yoav ft. Emily Browning_

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><p><em>Why the hell am I not dead yet?<em>

_I shouldn't be alive..._

Normally, anyone else would be counting their blessings if they were still alive and breathing after an explosion that happened just feet from them. But no; I awoke, confused as to why I'm still alive and breathing after being blown back fifty feet, unable to move and in extreme pain. Surely a few minuets ago before the blast, I was prepared to die. I went in after the enemy soldiers ready and willing. And now here I am, lying on the ground, unable to even turn my head toward the dead bodies of the enemy soldiers that are surely littered around me in pieces.

I wondered if I was lying in pieces... Though I could not get a good look at my injuries, I could defiantly feel them burning through my nervous system, the agony that the current pain brought gave me a nauseating feeling in the pit of my squeedly-spooch.

But it was for a worthy enough sacrifice.

The skin on the right side of my face sizzled and burned, possibly from the very moment the bomb was detonated. The burn was serve from what I could tell, for I was unable to open my right eye, and the possibility I might have lost my right eye lingered in the air I was trying to desperately breathe in at the moment.

It was becoming difficult to breathe by each passing minuet. When I tried to suck in clean, whole air, all I could inhale was the smoke from a fire nearby that the bomb must have triggered after going off. The powdery-taste of ash stuck to the inside of my mouth as I lay gasping. Now I was dying, at least I thought I was. I could feel my heartbeat slowly coming to a halt, but I did not see a light, or feel myself leave my body...

I have faced death before, at a fragile time in life when no one should ever experience it. At quite a young age a long time ago, I stared death in the face, literally. But there was a difference from that experience then, and what was happening to me now; When I nearly died the first time, as a girl, I had been afraid. And right now, as I lay surely dying, now a complete woman, fear was defiantly not with me. Instead, as I lay here gasping for even just a bit of air, I was reflecting on my life. Everything hit me at once, not the content smeethood I had before my life changed, but from the moment my life changed and took a completely different course than I had expected. When I was thrown into the game of Fate.

I remember now... A poem I had read back in High Skool by a long deceased human poet. I don't remember his name, but I certainly remember the impact that his poem about two different roads, two different life choices, had given me, even though, then, I had been struggling to find myself in the mess that I eventually became... Through the harsh grip of a horrible, traumatic experience I went through as a young girl... Much long ago... I became a lost soul. I lost myself in rage, despair, and revenge became my only way out. Even now as I lay here, choking and gasping, essentially dying, I was still struggling to find myself, and the question as to where everything went wrong for me, was still an unanswered mystery. And surely it would stay that way.

The stanzas of the poem were becoming so clear now, and it silently recited in my head as I felt a familiar warm liquid trickle down the corner of my mouth. I began to mumble them out loud, unable to raise my voice higher than a whisper;

_"...And sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood..."_

I moved slightly, and a serious pain shot up my spine as I did. I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes, and continued to weakly recite the poem,_ "A-and looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth... Then the other..."_ I took a shuddering breath of pain, my chest rising heavily up and down as I went on, _"...the other... Just as fair... and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear..."_

I briefly considered to sit up, but when I found I could barely move my arms or legs, and could barely strain my neck to glance around without feeling an abundant amount of pain shoot up my spine, I gave up trying to move and decided to let death take me slowly. _"...though as for that the passing there, had worn them really about the same... And both that morning equally lay, in leaves no step had trodden black... Oh... I kept the first for another day..."_

The pain had become so intense, that it numbed itself and was causing me to slowly lose consciousness, slipping in and out of the darkness, but I kept myself awake by trying to reach the end of the poem, and before I closed my only eye, I let the last two lines of the poem escape from behind my lips, quietly, and unheard by the living, _"I took the one less traveled by... and that... has made all the difference..."_

The smoky-gray sky filled with ash, slowly receded from my vision, as my left eye began to close, and as I was surely leaving this world, this universe filled with hatred and evil, yet able to be protected by love and acceptance from the good people I have ever met in my life. Maybe they outnumbered the pure evil that lie in the familiar and unfamiliar faces of foes I have faced as well? That I might not ever truly know, but I can only hope and pray that, in the future, overtime, everything will get better for all of us. For the unlucky ones who suffer in life.

One last thought entered my mind at that moment, just as I was greeted by darkness; a thought that has haunted me for many years, one I now may never truly know for sure:

_Where is my mind?_

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><p><strong>AN: Let me tell you right now: NO THIS IS NOT TAK'S POV.**

**Anyway, Yep, here's the first chapter or prologue for the first of my IZ trilogy. The POV is that of the unnamed main character, who's name won't be reveled until the next chapter. I tried to put not much info in this chapter because I need to finish "Parenthood" before a name and background are reveled for the main character.**

**UNLESS you really want the official chapter one next and don't care for spoilers, then you can let me know in your reviews. Because if I get enough "yes, continue thus story soon", then I will. And yes, I am trying hard to finish chapter 9 of "Parenthood" as we speak.**

**And yes, the poem the main character recites is "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. When I first began writing this prologue, in English class we had been reading "The Road Not Taken" and I thought it fit the general mood and theme of this first story in my IZ trilogy PERFECTLY. Trust me, when the story goes on and expands and many, many things happen, different twists and turns for the main character, you'll know why this poem was used for the prologue.**

**Plus the song "Where is My Mind" by Yoav featuring Emily Browning from the "Sucker Punch" soundtrack is the title song, basically this is the song that I used for the title of this first story. Again, if you listen to the lyrics, it fits into the whole general plot and theme of the story as does "The Road Not Taken". Again, you'll just have to wait and see why. ;)**

**Gah, I'm excited to finally have you all read these stories and I hope you enjoy! :D**


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